Sir John Dunne - Cumbria's First and Most Extraordinary Chief Constable

Alan Bryant£14.99

The story of a policeman who, from humble Irish origins, became the most senior Police Officer in Victorian Britain.On the way he found himself Chief Constable of four County/Borough forces before finally becoming the Chief Constable of Cumberland and Westmorland.

Publisher :

Pixel Tweaks Publications

Published :

2014

Pages :

306p

Format :

Paperback; 234mm x 156mm

Illustrations :

Some black and white photographs

ISBN :

9780992751470

Quantity:

Review

Book review by Steve Matthews of Bookends.Sir John Dunne: Cumbria's First and Most Extraordinary Chief Constable by Alan Bryant. Pixeltweats. £14.99

Sir John Dunne was, in fact, Chief Constable of Cumberland and Westmorland for a remarkable and exhausting forty-five years. The present Chief, Jerry Graham, can only stand back in amazement. Today, the Chief commands, despite the cuts and the austerity measures, a force of 1150 officers and a further 650 staff, and he has responsibility for a budget of £105 million. Back in the reign of Queen Victoria, Sir John Dunne managed to police the two counties efficiently and effectively with a mere seventy four men and an annual expenditure of £5,500.John Dunne was an Irish lad. He lied about his age - he was only fourteen at the time, but six-foot tall and well-built - in order to join the newly formed Manchester Borough police force in 1839. He became an "Expectant Constable", but police work wasn't easy for the untrained officer in the Manchester of the Chartist riots. On at least three occasions he faced the mobs and saw fellow officers so severely beaten that they later died.Within three years he transferred to the force at Chelmsford and in 1846, when he was twenty-two, he was made Inspector. After a further three years in Bath, and two in Kent as a Superintending Officer, John Dunne became the Chief Officer of the Norwich City Police in 1851. Speaking before Parliamentary Select Committees, he was a vociferous proponent for improving police effectiveness through cooperation and consistency.After a brief spell in Newcastle, he presented himself in Carlisle in January, 1857, to assume the leadership of the new joint police forces of Cumberland and Westmorland. One force was now responsible for the boroughs of Whitehaven, Carlisle and Kendal and the wider rural areas. Those seventy four officers were to maintain law and order in a population of over two hundred thousand people and over a large area. Statistically, each constable had a beat of forty square miles. This thirty-one year old bachelor was rewarded with a salary of £450 per year.Within months of setting up his headquarters in Lowther Street, he was proposing to increase his force and enlarge his budget by twenty-five per cent. He wanted his men to give evidence in court without bias or prejudice. "Dunne insisted that the qualifications necessary for service included high character, physicval power, great energy and intelligence." His country policemen carried the same responsibilities as a sergeant in an urban community.Dunne required probity from his officers. They had to refrain from expressing political and religious opinions and "forming objectionable connections" and he demanded the right to veto inappropriate marriage partners; "Constables may not marry without the approval of the Chief Constable."Dunne was also an active officer. When he saw the body of a supposed suicide, Ann Sewell in Embleton, he declared: "No. A knife in that hand could not have inflicted the wound." George Cass, who had stolen Ann's money and who had aroused Dunne's suspicions, was found guilty and hanged in Carlisle on 21st August, 1860. In a second murder case, that of Jane Emmerson, the murderer was caught and convicted because Dunne had taken a plaster cast of a footprint and matched it with the accused's shoes.John Dunne retired at the end of 1902 and died three years later at his home in Eden Mount, Wetheral. Even the Otago Witness in New Zealand published an obituary, praising, in particular, the regulations he introduced for the control of cattle disease. He'd married a granddaughter of the ship-owning Ismay family and he died a very wealthy man.Alan Bryant has written a detailed account of the public life of a remarkable man.